$5.00 Flea market find!

Scott Hanson

Scott Hanson

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Knifemaker / Craftsman / Service Provider
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Took a ride out to the local flea looking for a cheap hammer to replace the Made in China one that I just broke and came across this for $5.00. It had still had the factory edge on it witch was pretty dinged up and was in need of a hone. Aside from that all it had was a few superficial scratches and a bit of dirt on it, 10-15 minutes worth tinkering and i end up with a nearly new knife.
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The knife itself is an A J Henckels International 8" chef knife, it would be there entry level knife, Made in Spain, for a serious home chef or restaurant chef, that retail for about $50.00 to $60.00 So I don't think I did too bad on it, not mention I've always liked Henckels knives. The little checker board near the handle from my understanding signifies the date it was made, however, I was unable to verify this. The steel is X50CrMoV15. Here is alloy make up of the steel.

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I looks similar to AEB-L but with a little less carbon and a little more chrome and also with the addition of some vanadium. At first glance I would think the performance would be on par with AEB-L but I think that will most likely come down to heat treating. I did find a bit of information on heat treating that kind of confirmed what I was thinking when I honed the knife on some stone. I would glass this knife would be closer to HRC-56.

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When I first brought the knife to my shop and cleaned it up I decide to play with it a bit on my India stones to get rid of the ratty edge and get a feel for the steel, the first thing I noticed was with the first stroke the stone grabbed the steel and started aggressively cutting, like a steel that's a bit on the softer side, so after a few passes I hit the edge on my buffing wheel with green chrome rouge and it got good and sharp, I put the final edge on with steel, and it got screaming sharp.

The actual specs of the knife are 8 1/8" from where the edge begins, 1 7/8" wide, and 0.150" thick with a distal taper a ll the way out to the tip, with the edge being 0.020" thick as well. The knife drop forged with an integral guard and the tang is 1/8" thick, with 2 plastic scales and 3 aluminum rivets being the remainder of the handle.

This makes for a heavy knife at 9.5 ounces.

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All in all this knife is build like a tank, designed to last a life time and then some for certain, this and the looks are 2 of the things I really like about this knife. Things I don't like about the knife are the weight, and the squarish handle, but I do like the birds beak at the butt of the handle. The more I use the knife the more I'm ok with the squarish handle, I wish the handle was a bit deeper, it's 5/8" thick, 7/8" at the deepest point, and 5/8" at the top and bottom of the handle, I would like the feel better if the handle were a full 1/4" deeper, I'm ok with the handle thickness.

I don't know much about this steel, but I going to give it a really good workout in my kitchen for a while and see how it compares to my Santoku with AEB-L heat treated with cryo to HRc-62, just to see how the 2 compare to each other. The Santoku weighs in at 7 ounces and has a 6 1/2" blade made from 0.100" AEB-L ground to 0.010" at the edge.

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The Santoku handle is about 1 1/4" deep and perfectly oval shaped that fills my hand nicely, I wish I would have made the blade 8" long instead of 6 1/2" I think it would have made the knife more versatile.

Bottom line here is I would like to get a good side by side comparison of the 2 knives. 1.) First of all, to see how the 2 steels compare, which I think I have a pretty good idea already, 2.) Second of all, to see what I like about the new knife to see if I will be changing anything on future knives I make.

Anyhow here is small bit of information on steel comparisons of how X50CrMoV15 stacks up against some other steels.

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Pretty sure that's the asian version of german 1.4116 (AKA 4116 steel) which is a really common stainless alloy in Europe.
 
1066vik said:
Pretty sure that's the asian version of german 1.4116 (AKA 4116 steel) which is a really common stainless alloy in Europe.
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I did see that somewhere on the internet as well and I went back to look for it and couldn't find it. I think most of the steels used in drop forged knife blades are fairly low carbon and low in other alloys to make them forgeable and machinable, I don't think you can drop forge the really high alloys like s35vn. Even the Zwilling brand ends up with an HRc-57 or so. I don't expect the performance to be stellar. I think my AEB-L at 62 is going to out perform it, I only have to lightly touch my Santoku on a steel about once a year and it's hair popping sharp again. One thing that I think helps keep my knives sharp is my cutting boards are made of hard maple which isn't as hard on an edge as some of the exotic woods might be.
 
I've had a few weeks to put some use on my flea market find and it seems to be a fairly decent knife even for the price if you were to pick one up new. It's a sturdy well built knife takes and holds a good edge, how ever I don't think I've had it long enough to really compare it to the AEB-L at HRc-62. My thought on edge retention is even if it did start to dull a bit a few light strokes on a steel would bring it right back, so edge retention at this point isn't a huge issue, at least not for the light home use I put it through. One thing I did notice was even with the blades at equal sharpness the Henkel knife seems to require a bit more effort to push through vegetables than the Santoku due to steep bevel angles of the primary grind.

( As mentioned previously the extra weight of the drop forged construction is another issue that I don't like. )

The handle is a little too narrow, depth wise, for me to get a solid feeling grip on it, especially when using a pinch grip. The one thing that became apparent right away with the Henkel knife was the plastic handle gets slippery really quickly as soon as it gets wet, which I didn't like. I think the wooden handles are much less likely to get slippery when they get wet. I threw a photo of a side by side comparison of three knives, one is a 8 inch Chicago Cutlery chef knife with a black walnut handle. The Chicago Cutlery knife handle is about the same depth as the Henkel knife but it's wider which actually makes it feel better in my hand.

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Now for some handle revisions. All comments welcome.

Here is a close up pic of the same handles in the above photo with some revisions to the Santoku handle, let me know what your thoughts are.

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Awhile back I got a German Wusthof 6" slicer for $2. at Goodwill. Very handy. Before that it was three MAC Japanese knives @ about $2. each 😮. Hard to find deals these days.
 
USMCPOP said:
Awhile back I got a German Wusthof 6" slicer for $2. at Goodwill. Very handy. Before that it was three MAC Japanese knives @ about $2. each 😮. Hard to find deals these days.
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Some of the best stuff I've found has been at large estate sale outside of town like the old farmsteads. You can still find some really neat stuff.
 
USMCPOP said:
No, the scales are a kind of laminated stuff and old enough to be scruffy. I just chop veggies in the kitchen.
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I haven't used many laments in my handles yet but my thought right now is for kitchen knives I'm going to use some G10 and exotic hardwoods like African black wood, Cocobolo, and Lignum vitae. Seems like the oily hardwoods seem to have a bit of tackiness to them when the get wet.
 
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